The accurate and consistent diagnosis of patient health parameters is essential for the proper staging and treatment of the patient. Consistency in measurement results over time for a single patient is vital to ensure that the actual progress or degradation of the health of the patient is being properly determined. Consistency in measurement results across patients is also vital to ensure that treatment protocols and their underlying data are applied consistently from patient to patient.
Many types of patient health criteria may be classified along a sliding scale depending upon the severity of the affliction. For example, burns have a classification scale of severity ranging from first degree (least severe) up to third degree (most severe). Other classification scales exist for other types of afflictions, such as the Wagner's Scale for foot ulcers, the Payne Martin Classification for skin tears, and the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) Pressure Ulcer Staging System. Each of these classification scales has a known and accepted classification system that permits a practitioner to assess an affliction against certain predefined standards and assign to the affliction a classification value corresponding to one of a plurality of ranks along the severity scale. Changes of this value in time thus correspond to improving or deteriorating conditions of the affliction and permit the rapid assessment of patient health and progress. It is therefore critical for staging and treatment purposes that clinicians be able to accurately and consistently assess an affliction and classify it into its proper rank along a known scale for that affliction.